Rio Grande to halt flow near Las Cruces next week

EBID Irrigation Systems director James Narvaez, right, speaks with El Paso County Water Improvement District 1 employee Dan Harrienger, driver, and Adolfo Martinez, passenger, as they meter the water at the Mesilla Dam on Wednesday. (Robin Zielinski — Sun-News)

LAS CRUCES &GT;&GT; The Rio Grande near Las Cruces is inching closer to its seasonal dry-as-a-bone state, as three irrigation districts that rely on the flow shut off water for the year.

The 90,000-plus acre Elephant Butte Irrigation District ended its season July 31, while a Mexican irrigation district ended its watering year Thursday, according to the U.S Bureau of Reclamation.

That means the flow out of the farthest south of two major storages — Caballo Reservoir — already has dropped.

However, some Rio Grande water, which is bound for farmers in the neighboring El Paso Co. Improvement District No. 1 in Texas, will continue flowing through Doña Ana County until Aug. 22, according to the reclamation bureau. After that, the Rio Grande will dry up until the next releases for farmers, likely in the spring of 2015.

RRobin Zielinski — Sun-News
Water from the Rio Grande heading for El Paso flows into the west side canal at the Mesilla Dam on Wednesday. The Rio Grande will continue flowing through Doña Ana County until Aug. 22.

EBID officials considered this year's water allotment — while a slight improvement over last year's irrigation — reflective of an ongoing river water drought.

"It was extremely unsatisfactory — the amount of water we got," said Las Cruces-area pecan farmer Les Fletcher.

A number of farmers have expressed discontent about the water amounts in recent years, especially because the fees to belong to the district must be paid every year, regardless of how much water is actually delivered. Some, especially smaller-scale farmers, have said they've had to cut back on their acreage. Others have lost pecan trees to the drought.

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In early July, the EBID governing board added an extra 1.5 acre-inches of water per irrigable acre to this year's allotment for fields. That took the overall amount for the year to 7.5 acre-inches — more than double last year's amount. But irrigation officials considered 2013 the worst in nearly a century of local irrigation district history.

Irrigators deem 3 acre-feet per irrigable acre to be a full allotment for a given year — an amount that has allowed the district to run as late as September or October in wetter years.

Ramon "Dosi" Alvarez, who farms cotton and alfalfa in the southern part of Doña Ana County, said the extra bit of water at the end of the season was helpful for his own fields. And the season overall was a "better water year than the last four years."

"We're learning to be a little more efficient, and probably EBID is doing a better job," said Alvarez, a former board member for the irrigation district.

Many Mesilla Valley and Hatch-area growers have survived by relying on groundwater pumping.

The gates at Elephant Butte Lake, the northern-most of the two reservoirs, are expected to close Saturday, said Bert Cortez, with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in El Paso.

The EBID irrigation season was expected to end earlier, but "we were able to stretch it a little bit farther because the monsoon kicked in," Esslinger said.

The irrigation district, which shunts water away from the Rio Grande at three key places, had stopped taking water from the river by July 29, Esslinger said. But new water from runoff into the river allowed EBID to reopen briefly, he said.

County irrigators will be heavily reliant on new water — whether from summer monsoon rains or runoff from snowfall in the coming winter — for next year's water.

"It leaves us with still a lot of uncertainty," Esslinger said of the end of the season.

Forecasters have said the odds for a stronger-than-usual monsoon rainfall in late summer are heightened because of an El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean. That tends to mean more precipitation for the Southwest.

If runoff enters the river or EBID's irrigation network south of Caballo Reservoir, there's a chance it can be put to use by the district, Esslinger said.

"Our season is over, but it's not to say that with the monsoon we wouldn't put more water in our system, if we could and if we could find some farmers that will take it," he said.

But if monsoon water runs into the two reservoirs, it could help EBID farmers next season.

"We hope we get enough rain and El Niño comes in and we get some more water in the lake," Alvarez said.